


Maybe It's You

by jackbarakms



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: F/M, Family Fluff, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Karasuno Volleyball Club - Freeform, Mutual Pining, One Shot, Reunions, Siblings, hot volleyball players
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-20
Updated: 2021-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-29 00:34:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30148029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jackbarakms/pseuds/jackbarakms
Summary: A chance encounter in a market, a promise of rekindled friendship, a flash of ginger hair from his childhood. After eight years, Ukai Keishin never thought he’d see Hinata Reiki ever again, that her life in Tokyo would keep her from returning to their little hometown. Until she shows up in his market.Is it fate?
Relationships: Hinata Natsu / Sister OC, Hinata Shouyou / Sister OC, Ukai Keishin / OC
Kudos: 2





	Maybe It's You

When Hinata Reiki lost her boyfriend and her job all in the same week, she hadn’t hesitated to pack up as many belongings as her battered suitcase would allow and jump on a plane back to Miyagi. The summer heat of her hometown has always been more stifling than Tokyo – where she had spent the past four years after University – sticking the clothes to her sweat-slicked skin as she chases after her younger sister, flip flops slapping against the ice-melting tarmac. 

“Na-chan!” Reiki shouts after her sister, watching the tiny ginger run across the street to Sakanoshita Market. She’s quick to follow after her, rushing into the semi-familiar store that’s empty apart from the owner behind the counter, being hit with an immediate blast of cold air coming from the air conditioning. It’s enough to make her sigh out with relief. 

“Natsu,” Reiki sighs, noticing the flash of ginger hair disappearing into the candy aisle. “I did not come home for this,” she mutters to herself, deciding to grab the iced teas from the fridges at the back of the store that they’d originally trekked all the way here, before finding her sister, Natsu, giggling to herself in the next aisle. The nine-year-old is on her tip-toes, reaching for her favourite candies on the top shelf. 

“Imouto-chan,” she chides gently, reaching up behind her little sister to grab the Eevee-shaped gummies her little fingers can’t seem to reach. “No running off.” She hands over the candies to the child no higher than her midriff. 

Natsu’s face lights up immediately and the warmth that spreads through Reiki’s chest is obviously not a symptom of the sticky heat of the outside. This right here is a simple reminder of why she left the city. Those bright lights, those bustling streets, those towering skyscrapers – they all feel so insignificant when she is finally surrounded by her family again. 

She might never go back to Tokyo now. 

As they make their way over to the counter with their snacks, Natsu starts to plead with her older sister. “Can I help pay, onee-san?”. They reach the counter before Reiki can answer, the cold air conditioning fluttering over their burnt skin. 

“‘Course you can.” Reiki gets her sister to place their items on the till while she scrambles about in her swinging tote bag for her falling apart purse, handing it over to the youngest of the Hinata children in an attempt from their mother to further her maths skills. 

“That’ll be two-ninety.” Gruff is not low nor rough enough to describe the voice from behind the counter that sends shivers down the spine of the taller sister. Reiki’s head shoots up and immediately catches the strong gaze of the shopkeeper with the half-smoked cigarette hanging between his lips. His long hair – obviously bleached – is pushed out of his face by a thin headband showing off every dangerous curve to his sharp features. A jaw like that could cut through bone. The sweat that trickles down the back of Reiki’s spine is a direct result of the new heat settling in the pit of her stomach. When he turns his head to take the money from Natsu, his earrings glint mockingly in the fluorescent lights.   
He is almost familiar. 

“Two-ninety exactly,” he counts, dropping the coins into the cash register, “good job, kid.” 

“Thanks, Coach Ukai!” 

Reiki freezes, hand curled around the cool bottle of iced tea she’s been waiting for. Her eyes widen at the guy sitting behind the cash register who’s mouth-watering muscles cleanse as he leans his arms on the counter separating them. His smirk hits her with a wave of nostalgia. 

“What?” 

“That’s Sho’s coach!” Natsu tells her, reaching on the tips of her toes for her gummy snacks shaped like her favourite Pokemon. 

“When he said Coach Ukai, I thought–”

“You were thinking of the old man, huh?” He’s fully grinning now, squashing the butt of his cigarette into the ashtray he hasn’t cleaned out in a while. “I should’ve realised Hinata was related to you, that sorta hair isn’t something you see ‘round here every day.” 

“Keishin!” Reiki scrambles around the side of the counter before she can stop herself, throwing her arms around the guy she hasn’t seen since she was eighteen. He chuckles, the sound deep in her ear, as he wraps his own arms around her waist, lifting her off of her feet. 

His touch sends unusual sparks flying through her body. It must be a cause of the metal and the heat. 

“It’s been too long, Reiki,” he says when he finally sets her back on her feet, arms loose around her waist. Natsu stares at them from the other side of the counter, eyes wide, unbelieving of the smile that adorns the usually grumpy shopkeeper. 

“Quite.” Reiki laughs. “Almost as long as your hair.” Without even realising, her hand comes up to play with the loose strands of blonde hair falling into his eyes. Ukai chuckles awkwardly, letting go of her waist to rub at the back of his sweaty neck. Her body seems almost deflated without his touch. 

“Got a little too old for the buzzcut.” 

“Well, I certainly won’t miss it.” Their eyes lock again. His always looked deceptively darker when they were younger, but up this close, it’s obvious they are flecked with shades of hazel and honey. “Somehow you look even more of a bad boy than you did before, my mom certainly wouldn’t like it.” When they laugh, the memories of their high school years hang heavily in the air between them. 

Even after all these years, the sight of Ukai Keishin’s eyes is enough to take her breath away. 

From the other side of the counter, Natsu is quick to clear her throat and the adults’ heads snap towards her, letting out awkward chuckles at the mischievous glint in her eyes. “I should get her back home,” mumbles Reiki, backing away from the guy she’s never forgotten. He nods, watching her cross over to her little sister. “It was really great to see you again, Keishin.” 

“You too.” She’s halfway out of the door before he shouts on her again, his loud voice making her jump and turn to look at him, hand tight around her sister’s to keep her from running off like she did before. “A couple of the guys from school are part of a neighbourhood volleyball team. You should come to practice tomorrow, you know, to catch up and all that.” 

The smile that lights up her face is enough to rival the summer sun hanging high in the sky.

Reiki’s never looked more like her siblings than she does when she smiles, eyes scrunched up, lips stretched so far apart it looks like it might hurt, and to top it all off she’s never grown out of her baby cheeks which always seem to get that little bit rounder when she smiles like that. Shouyou is not the only sun in his family. 

“Sure! I’d love that!” She orders her sister to wait where she is before she crosses back over to him, grabbing a hold of the notepad he keeps on the counter for phone call orders. He watches her scribble down a series of numbers before she pushes it back towards him. “That’s my number, text me the details, okay?” 

By the time he looks up from the familiar writing, Natsu is gone and Reiki is struggling to keep up with her fast-paced running, laughing as her flip-flops nearly fall off her feet.   
“Definitely a Hinata thing.” 

✘✘✘✘✘✘✘✘✘

At five o’clock the next night, Reiki slips into the fenced-off courts used for all types of local sports, heart hammering against her chest at the prospect of seeing her high school friends for the first time in eight years. She wipes sweat-slicked hands down the back of her denim skirt, praying that the black silk button-up she tucked into it doesn’t look too out-of-place. Ukai had invited her out for dinner afterwards with some old friends and she had wanted to look nice. Too nice, one might think.

“Reiki!” cheers a voice and her head snaps towards the sound. Ukai runs up to her first, his closest friends Takinoue Yusuke and Shimada Makoto close behind. All three of them, and the other members of their neighbourhood volleyball team, are clad in polyester shorts and loose vests, making her feel more out of place than ever. 

“It’s really you!” Takinoue goes barrelling past Ukai, not hesitating to tackle Reiki in a bear hug that spins her around and causes her to giggle wildly. “I’ve missed that pretty smile of yours,” he says when he sets her back on her feet, hands clamped on her waist. 

Takinoue had been the first of the trio that Reiki had met, all the way back in Junior High when they had been sat next to each other in their chemistry class. After that, their friendship had soared and when they had gone up to Senior High together, Reiki hadn’t hesitated to join the Karasuno Volleyball Club as the manager, anything to stay close to her best friend. At that point, she had become the best wing-woman Takinoue could ever need, no matter how difficult it might have been getting him dates with every girl he ever fancied, strengthening their friendship despite their newfound group of volleyball players. Even when she had gone to university in Osaka, Takinoue had still stayed in touch, sending her bi-monthly letters that had been stained in all sorts of food and drinks she couldn’t quite make sense of. 

“Taki-san, you look the same!” Reiki’s voice takes on a new sense of the word warm as she steps back from her old friend, having to tilt her head backwards to get a better look at the tall blonde. He’d always been taller than her, having at least a head on her height throughout their years at high school. When they’d befriended Shimada and Ukai in their first year of Senior High, Reiki had seemed to only shrink and she had spent the next three years constantly having to look up in conversation. 

She still hasn’t grown. 

“I could say the same about you, shortie!” Takinoue throws his arm around her shoulder, tugging her closer to his already sweaty body. She can feel his grin loosening his muscles, always the source of easy-going joy in their group. 

Stuck under the arm of Takinoue, Reiki is quick to meet the eye of dark-haired Shimada behind his glasses, noticing the pinkish hue to his cheeks that had become a staple to his appearance since they’d first met. She grins up at him, her right arm locked around Takinoue’s waist, using her left hand to wave at him. 

“Hi, Shimi-san,” she greets, “I missed you too, you know.” 

“Didn’t expect to see you back here, big city girl after all.” 

Together they laugh and the four of them continue talking louder than ever, even in childhood they had always been the loudest in the corridors, forcing the attention onto them as they found some way to find hilarity in mundane situations. Back then, Reiki would be stuck beneath Takinoue’s arm, laughing at whatever impersonation he was doing of one of their teachers, while Shimada would pretend to be an overly shy student and Ukai would slap their backs, laughing louder than any of them. 

Even now, Ukai’s eyes are quick to meet hers. 

They are soon called over by one of the middle blockers on their neighbourhood team to start practicing. Shimada and Takinoue run off after promises from Reiki to cheer them on, cheeks sore from laughing so much as their dramatic pleading, very much the same as the teenage boys she knew all those years ago. When she turns back around, she realises that she’s been left alone with Ukai. 

He scratches the back of his neck with one hand. 

Something flutters deep within her. 

“So, you gonna cheer me on too?” 

“Of course.” She shoves her hands into the pockets of her denim skirt. “I was as much a cheerleader as a manager for you guys.” Ukai chuckles lowly, stepping closer until her neck is craned so far back that the top of her spine starts to ache.

His pupils are blown so wide it makes his eyes look almost black. 

“You were always good at that, princess.” He leans past her to pick a ball out of the basket behind her, arm brushing against hers, the unusual scent of cigarette smoke and cologne making her head spin. 

He winks and runs off to join his friends, leaving her alone by the bench, which she collapses onto to catch her breath. Back in first year, when they were just little sixteen-year-olds who argued about every little thing in their lives, Ukai had dubbed her a ‘princess’ in an attempt to grate her nerves and when it worked, the nickname had stuck to her like some sort of glue. It had progressed into a term of endearment when they’d finally accepted their friendship in second year, fitting hand-in-hand with the head pats that were a Ukai Keishin speciality. Somewhere along the line, it had developed into a weapon that could knock the wind out of her lungs. 

Her hands grip the wood of the bench she’s sat on as she watches him serve, a newfound warmth pooling somewhere deep inside of her that makes her rethink the past eight years of her life outside of Miyagi. 

As the practice continues, Reiki lets her eyes dart between her old friends. Takinoue and Shimada haven’t changed a bit, still, the same tall boys who would carry her through the hallways when she was feeling down, or saving her from stray volleyballs in the old gymnasium she had grown accustomed to during their three years. But Ukai has changed more than she thought possible, and she doesn’t just mean his now long hair. Physical appearance aside – sure, his arms got super buff which was more surprising than anything since he used to be the skinniest of the lot of them and now even the sight of the muscles in his arms clenching is enough to make her sweat. – even his personality seems to have changed a bit. Back in third year, the thought of being Captain repulsed him, too afraid of any sort of responsibility that would force him to actually put effort into something, and now he’s the Coach, exactly the type of person his grandfather would have wanted him to be if he still had faith in him. And the way he’d acted around Natsu, smiling at her, praising her for her limited maths skills, ruffling her hair as she left his shop just like he used to ruffle Reiki’s. The Ukai Keishin she used to know hated being around her kid siblings, always complaining about their whining or her need to cancel plans to babysit. 

She wonders when he realised who the kids were after all these years.

Without her even realising it at first, Shimada slips onto the bench beside her, gulping down water before she can utter a greeting.

“What’s on your mind?” he asks, using the back of his hand to wipe the water droplets from his mouth. When he catches onto her confused staring, he laughs and nudges her gently. “You’ve been zoned out on Keishin for a while, thought you were broken.” 

Reiki offers up her own laugh, although they can both tell it comes out a little bit more strained than before, leaning against the dark-haired man she learned had taken over his grandparents grocers after high school. 

“Just feeling nostalgic.” Her head cocks to the side slightly as she watches Ukai run across the court to reach the ball, jumping to garner more power in his toss to Takinoue. His grin lights up his entire face. “Did Kei realise who Shouyou was?” 

“Not at first.” Reiki can hardly look away from him. He’s always been able to command the court but this is just insane. She’s just going to blame it on his new hair, there’s something about the way it starts to fall out of his headband that makes him look like he should be on the front cover of the magazines he sells in his market. “When he realised Hinata was your brother, he wouldn’t stop talking about you. Not to the kids. Of course. He wouldn’t embarrass himself like that in front of them, but Taki and I got an earful.” 

Unconsciously, Reiki tucks a strand of ginger hair behind her ear. 

“I still don’t think Shouyou remembers him as the guy who used to eat all of his mochi.” 

Shimada laughs louder, the memories starting to flood the forefront of his mind. “Your brother would get so annoyed, he’d cry!” 

Reiki’s laughter echoes through the night. “And then I’d end up shouting at Kei for making my kid brother cry.” She can still remember it clear as day, the way she’d purposely ignore Ukai to get him to apologise, how his apologies would always end in him getting her free from his mother’s store. They’d end up at the nearest playpark, swinging side-by-side on the swingset, sharing meat buns and talking about anything that game to mind, from volleyball to mangas to weird philosophical theories until the sun started to set. 

It was the only times they were ever alone. 

“Keishin used to like you so much, he’d get annoyed at any of the guys on the team staring at you for too long.” 

Reiki’s breath hitches. 

Shimada is gone before she can ask him about it, being called over by his teammates to practice his pinch serve. He ruffles her hair before he runs off, but it is his words that stick to her skin for the rest of the night, like some sort of humid sweat that clings to every crevice of her bones.   
What if she had stayed? 

✘✘✘✘✘✘✘✘✘

It takes another week for Reiki to even think about seeing her friends again. Seven days had passed by in a blur of passing out resumes to workplaces she had no real intention of making a living out of, ending up with a job at a boba tea cafe she had frequented as a teenager in an attempt to start again. It’s not exactly the four-star restaurant she was used to working at in Tokyo, but it’s enough, for now. 

“Your chain broke?” Reiki asks her younger brother, Shouyou, hands on her hips as she stares down at the blue bicycle she had bought him for his sixteenth birthday. 

“I was just cycling down the hill and there was a hole in the road and I went woosh right into the grass!” His hands fly around his body at double the speed at which he talks, bouncing from the adrenaline rushing through his body. “And then I was thinking I’m going to be late and Kageyama is going to say something like ‘Hinata if you are late again, I will never toss to you!’–” Although Reiki had only met Kageyama Tobio once before, even she has to admit that that was a painfully accurate impersonation. “–so I called you because you’re the best big sister ever!” 

“That I am.” Reiki’s hands drop from her hips as she leans down to pick up the bicycle. “Get this in the backseat and I’ll take you to practice. You might still be late, though.”

“It’s okay, Kageyama won’t be mean if you’re there.” She watches her brother struggle for a few minutes as he wrestles his bike into the back seats of her pretty small car, covering himself in more dirt and oil than the fall had. When he turns back to her with a wide grin that lights up his entire face, it reminds her of all the time she spent missing her little brother while she had been away from home. 

“Thank you so much, onee-san. You’re awesome!” 

The thing about Shouyou is that he is easily more excitable than a newly adopted puppy, like he’s filled himself up with soda and someone’s popped a few mints inside his mouth, waiting for him to explode like a backyard science project to claim your fifteen minutes of internet fame. When he runs, he does nothing less than a sprint, but Reiki has gotten so used to her brother’s fast legs that she’s just as quick to stop him from getting any closer to her, one hand on his forehead to hold him back. He struggles against her hold, swinging his arms in an attempt to get to hug her. 

“Nuh-uh, Sho-Sho, you’re not ruining any more of my clothes.” She shoves him away before any of the dark oil from his bicycle chain can get onto her white vest top. 

They manage to reach Karasuno High School in almost record time. Reiki rolls to a stop in the parking lot of her old high school, staring up at the building she had spent three years in, making memories she had tried to repress to keep herself in Tokyo. She’d always been better at school than her trio of delinquent volleyball friends, getting much higher grades than the three of them combines, which eventually led to her leaving for university in another part of the country, too far away for them to ever come visit. But, she had still ended up back here, nostalgia rushing up the back of her throat like vomit she can’t seem to rid her mouth of the taste of. 

“You wanna check out practice with me?” Shouyou asks her, playing with the strap of his gym bag as if that one little activity is enough to keep his excitement in check. She nods, absentmindedly, and slides out of the car with her little brother, trying to keep up with him as he walks at double the speed of a normal human being. 

He pushes open the door to the gymnasium Reiki had spent so much of her after school time in, shouting out an apology to his Captain for being late to practice. 

This place hasn’t changed a bit. 

“Shouyou!” shouts a loud voice from the other end of the gym. Reiki’s head swivels towards the tiny second-year with the distinct hair that she recognises from her brother’s descriptions as being Nishinoya, the fast-attack libero of the team. “Who’s that?” he asks once he’s bounced over, his friend with the shaved head in tow.

“This is my sister, Reiki!” At once, almost all the boys drop at the waist, calling out a formal greeting that causes the blush to rise to her cheeks. The same thing had happened ten years previously, when the old Coach Ukai had introduced her to the Karasuno Crows as their new manager and the boys had had nothing but kind words to say to her, even as Takinoue claimed her as his best friend so they’d all have to back off. 

It feels weird to stand in here without them. 

As she greets them back, her hand finds a spot on the back of her freckled neck to scratch while the other waves at all of them, trying to get a good look at her brother’s teammates so she would remember them when she finally got to see them play in a proper match. 

“Hey!” a loud voice from the utility cupboard catches everyone’s attention. A blonde head pokes out of the door, causing Reiki’s heartbeat to speed up against her will. “Has anybody seen Takeda-sensei’s folder, he said he’d…” but he trails off when his eyes fall on the woman standing by the open door, unusual ginger hair lit up by the sunlight streaming through the high-up windows. “Reiki?” 

“Hi again, Keishin,” she’s pretty sure she stumbles through that one simple greeting, but Ukai doesn’t seem to care as he crosses the hardwood floor and lifts her into a tight hug. She laughs despite the butterflies swarming her gut, keeping a tight grip on his shoulders even as he sets her down. 

He never used to smile like that when they were kids.

“It’s only been a week, you can’t have missed me that much,” she jokes, but even she can’t stop thinking about the way his fingers on her waist burn through her skin. 

“It was eight years before that.” He rolls his eyes as if she’s the one being stupid. “I’m allowed to miss you as much as I want.”

His words are a static shock to her heart. 

Shimada’s words play in her head once more, just like they’ve been doing all week, banging around all that empty space as if they could drill a spot into her skull and nest there. It’s been eight years, there’s no way he feels the same way as he did back then. But he’s smiling so much it must hurt that pretty mouth of his. 

“Everyone,” Ukai spins her around to face the team, one arm planted firmly around her waist. She’s not sure she wants him to remove it. “This is Hinata Reiki. Pretty sure you’ve just met her, but she used to be the manager when I played for Karasuno and she’s my friend. Be respectful!” 

“We certainly kept the bench warm together, didn’t we Keishin?” 

“Haha.” His reply is deadpan. He pinches the skin of her waist in retaliation to her joke, spreading a jolt throughout her body that she’s pretty sure was not a cause of the pain. “You gotta speak nice about me ‘round my team, princess.”

A simple name really should not have this kind of effect on her. 

“Whatever you say,” she meets his eyes, “Coach.” Unfortunately for her, he turns away before she notices the darkening of his eyes. Even after all these years, she still has the same effect on him, like she holds the strings attached to his heart, playing him like a puppeteer. 

“Are you staying to watch, Reiki-senpai?” interrupts the small blonde girl who suddenly seemed to appear out of nowhere. Reiki’s seen her in the backyard of the Hinata household plenty of times with Shouyou and Kageyama, she’s pretty sure her mom called her Yachi once when she was leaving. 

Around them, the boys all perk up, waiting on her answer. 

Even Ukai seems more attentive. 

“Sadly not.” They all deflate as one. “Maybe another time. I’ve got to head to work before I’m late too. Sho–” she turns to her brother, who turns away from whatever argument he and Kageyama are having to listen to her. “–I’ll pick you up when practice is done, okay? We can fix your bike later because Natsu will wanna help.” 

“Awesome, onee-san!” Shouyou’s thumbs-up brings a wide smile to her lips, almost identical to the one that he sports. 

Sunshine siblings, Ukai can’t help but think when he watches them and it seems as if the rest of the team are having the same though, all of them wondering if humans could be made out of starlight. 

As the boys rush off to start their practice, Reiki turns back to the blonde with the razor-sharp smile. That smile hasn’t changed a bit.

“Guess I’ll see you around, Kei,” she says, pulling her keys out of the pocket of her denim shorts. Ukai nods, eyes stuck on the hypnotic pull of said keys swinging around her index finger. She’d do the same thing back when they were third-years, blowing bubbles of gum that would pop in his face and make him sweat just that little bit more, like she knew she had total control of his heart. 

She did. 

“I live above my mom’s shop.” The keys don’t stop swinging. “You can come ‘round tonight for free beer, just us.”

“Just us?” Ukai nods and Reiki feels her cheeks heat up at the thought of getting to see where he lives. “Yeah. I’d like that. Suppose I’ll text you later then, Coach.” 

When she winks, his heart caves in. 

✘✘✘✘✘✘✘✘✘

There are still splatters of oil on Reiki’s denim shorts, but it’s too late to do anything about it now. Not when she’s ringing the buzzer next to the backdoor of the shop, the one clearly marked as Ukai, K, to let everyone know that this apartment belongs to him and not his parents. She waits for the ringing sound and lets herself in, jogging up the flight of stairs until she reaches the open door. 

Ukai is already waiting for her, arms crossed over his chest as she leans all of his weight on the doorframe. A lit cigarette is stuck between his teeth. When Reiki comes into sight, his eyes obviously rake over her body, somehow suddenly finding a newfound appreciation for her adult body when all she wears is shorts and an old Karasuno sweatshirt she didn’t mind getting dirty. 

“You’re late,” he accuses, uncrossing his arms so he can pull his cigarette out of his mouth. She can’t help but watch the way the white stick trails over his bottom lip. 

“I had a bicycle chain to fix, gonna hold that against me?” Ukai chuckles, it’s a deeper sound than it used to be but it still fills her with the same shaky butterflies. Half of the time, he’s still the same boy she used to sit next to at lunch, the other half, he seems like this completely different person. A much hotter but still different person. 

“Can’t keep a guy on the hook, you know.” 

Reiki scoffs as she slips into his apartment, hearing him close the door behind them.

Finally alone. 

“So,” she whistles, noticing the half-full ashtray on the coffee table. “You always smoke at home?” 

“I can stop if you want.”

Reiki shakes her head, unable to meet Ukai’s gaze as she sits on the unusually clean couch. She’d never admit it out loud, but her old friend makes cigarettes look somewhat sexy, no matter how dangerous they are. 

Despite her indifference, he snuffs it out anyway. He talks a mile a minute about how he’d cleaned up specifically for her as he crosses into his kitchen, voice travelling through the open plan apartment that shows off every crevice of what was probably considered a ‘bachelor pad’ by her friends when he first moved in. With a start, she realises that the apartment is cleaner than what she had expected from him, nothing like the Ukai she’d known who had the messiest bedroom she had ever seen. Despite the lack of mess, the apartment screams Keishin in a way that makes her heart ache with nostalgia. One flick of her eyes is met with old volleyball memorabilia, a Karasuno flag that she had made for him presented proudly in the centre of it all. Another flick leads to all of the manga he used to read between classes instead of doing school. And there, above the television, the collage of photographs Reiki had made for them and their friends as a graduation gift. 

She gulps back the emotions that rush up her throat. 

“Here.” Ukai’s hand appears from behind her, fingers clutched around the neck of a beer bottle. She smiles up at him, but she can feel it waver as she takes the bottle from him, their fingers brushing together on the cool glass. “You okay, Reiki?” 

Her eyes flicker over to the framed collage once again. 

“You kept it?” 

Ukai’s eyes follow her gaze, unconsciously blushing when he realises what’s caught her attention. He tries to laugh it off as he climbs over the back of the couch to sit next to her, not even realising the heat that bursts throughout him when their arms brush together. 

“We all kept them,” he tells her, arm lying on the back of the couch behind her head. If she moved a little bit forward, her head would slot easily into the crook of his elbow. 

“Mine’s used to be above my desk at school.” She takes a long sip of the beer from his fridge. The hairs at the back of her neck are standing on edge, ultra-aware of how close his arm is to her skin. “If I ever lost motivation, I’d just look up and see you three smiling down at me. It put me right back to work.” 

“Why? You wanted to do better than us?” 

When he smiles down at her, it is the exact same smile from the photograph she spent way too long staring at in university. Her heart speeds up in her chest.

“Well, that…” Ukai laughs again. It lights up his whole face in a way she can only describe as pretty, as if it’s the only time he’s really being himself. “But you guys gave me strength when I needed it.” 

This time, he hums, before taking a long sip of his beer, lips curling over the rim of his bottle. And now, she can’t seem to look away from the leftover dribbles of beer stuck to his bottom lip. 

“I wish I’d come home earlier,” she confesses quietly, forcing herself to hold back from swiping at his lip with her thumb. She’d never really seen Ukai like this at school, but now it hits her so quick, like she’s standing in the middle of the highway and a truck is barreling right towards her. 

Maybe she’s felt like this all along. 

“You miss me that much, princess?” 

Ukai is obviously joking but Reiki nods anyway, catching him by surprise. He stares at her for a moment too long, some would say, lips parted in a confused exhale of breath, eyes shining with every emotion he’s been forced to keep repressed for all of these years. 

“You missed us or me?” he asks, leaning forward to place his half-empty beer bottle on the coffee table near his ashtray. 

Reiki can’t look away from his lips. 

“You, Keishin, you.” 

His arm tucks around her shoulder, pulling her closer so that their mouths can meet halfway. His lips curl around hers almost perfectly, like they were meant to slot together at this exact moment of time, even his arms fit around her perfectly, curving her in a way that leaves no room for air between them to even breathe. He tastes so strongly of beer and cigarettes that it doesn’t even surprise her – if this was anybody else, she’d hate it, she’d stop right now and never look back, but this is her Keishin and he can make anything work. 

They pull away for just a moment, a fraction of a second to catch their breaths, foreheads pressed closely together as if they can’t bear to be too far away for too long. 

“Stay the night.” 

When they were younger, it was a regular request that would see Reiki stealing the bed while her three friends were forced to share the wooden floor, spending the whole night arguing about blankets while she slept soundly. 

Now, it’s a request that sends fire sizzling through her veins. 

“As long as I get the bed.” 

Ukai laughs as he kisses her again and she realises he never wants him to stop.

Maybe it was him all along. 

Maybe she was always meant to come home to him.

**Author's Note:**

> coach ukai deserves way more love!! 
> 
> hope you enjoyed it! i'll mostly be posting one-shots on here but if you want full fics, you can check out my wattpad which is @/jackbarakms


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